In recent articles we've looked together at complex adaptive systems, or CAS's. (See The Future, part one; The Future, part two; The Future, part three.) They're sometimes called peer networks, because there's no central authority in charge. Another name for them is distributed control systems.
In these systems control arises out of the system itself, which is composed of many thousands or millions of agents acting according to, usually, relatively simple rules.
As we've seen before, a good example is a beehive, where no-one is directing the movement of the hive and yet everything is getting done. Another example is the graceful flight of a herd of mallards, thousands of birds completely changing direction in 1/70th of a second with no-one directing it. (When the lead bird is taken out, the flock instantly reforms.)
Numerous other examples could be given: economies, the immune system, the weather, ecosystems, the brain, and of course digital neural nets.
The interesting thing about a peer network is that emergent properties can arise out of it that could not have been predicted by any amount of study of the units or agents composing it.
For instance, studying an individual ant does not predict the properties of an anthill. Intently studying a molecule of gas does not predict the formation of a star.
In techno-terms, the way it's put is that "running the system" is not only the fastest but the only reliable way to realize the emergent properties of a CAS.
Similarly, intense study of an individual computer cannot prepare us for the properties which could emerge from a network of such computers.
One such possibility is true intelligence.
An increasing consensus among artificial intelligence researchers is that self-awareness itself is an emergent property of a large distributed network—and that this is the very phenomenon that goes on in our mind.
By this scenario, there's no one "in control" in our mind. There's no homunculus or center somewhere calling the shots. Rather, many competing agents vie for center stage in the mind, and occupy it for certain periods of time.
Hence, we all have the experience of being different people at different times and circumstances. We can be thoughtful one moment and thoughtless the next. We can be generous one moment and experiencing road rage half an hour later. We eat the chocolate sundae and five minutes later a thought says, "You shouldn't have done that."
It's how we can be kind one moment and cruel the next. It's how we can "compartmentalize" things.
A recent film showed a man from the back playing with his dogs. And he's very loving. Only as the camera gets closer and he turns around do we realize it's Hitler.
What explains all this is that there's no-one in charge in our minds. There's just competing mental "agents" whose shifting overall pattern is experienced as the kaleidoscope of thoughts, moods, desires, etc. in our minds. There's no one in control.
What this means is that this stable "I" that we're so fond of (obsessed with?) is a fiction—a fiction that we create out of thought.
There's nothing stable in the shifting pattern of our mind, so we invent something stable—a personal self, the "I," the self-chooser who is "master of my fate, captain of my soul."
But there's nobody there—and that's very good news. Because when we really begin to see that there's nobody there it's a great liberation. That's why it's said by great masters that awakening is not "of" the I but "from" the I. We realize that there's no one in control and there never was.
At that point something relaxes and begins letting life flow wherever it wants to go—realizing that it's going to do that anyway, and always has. Life is happening by itself, and there's no separate somebody around to be concerned about it.
Normally we listen to the mind which asserts that it knows something. We try to "run" our life and it doesn't feel very good.
But we can listen instead to the energy which arises out of something deeper than the mind, deeper than the competing agents of the brain—an ungraspable nothingness inside, which, like the rise of the mallards, also gives rise to an emergent property—in this case the inner guidance of love and compassion.
—jim sloman, 6/21/01 for Jun 21
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